NHS Direct Plans Withdrawal From 111 Helpline

The troubled phone hotline faces fresh turmoil as a major provider of the service decides to withdraw from its contracts.

In theory,telephone tri-edge was a good idea and practiced a time,it was anything but realistically on the weekends we are still unsafe.We don't have the staff to deal with the calls that are coming in.

This investigation by two undercover reports in Bristol and Doking highlighted everything that was going wrong at NHS 111.I remember once we sent out an ambulence for cat scratch.This medical center in South-east London has 20,000 patients.The service last just a couple of days here in March before buckling.

They couldn't manage the volume of calls.The time to answer calls were long,the process taht patients have to go through till they get an answer from this system is very protracted.A lot of patients gave up before they even got to that stage.The Commission of the service locally realized that the service was potentially dangerous and poored very quickly.

It's emerged that the offically valuation of the NHS pilot skim had not been published before the contracts were signed.NHS direct based the entire operation on pilots where they expected to earn 13 pounds a call.In fact,they brought in between 7 and 9 pounds a call,leaving a huge shortfall.In addition,each call to twice as long as expected.Critics argued that replacing nurses with computers was destined to end badly.

It has all got too complicated.I think the simplest thing is go back to a system that was nurse-led.Under NHS direct,nurses used to handle around 60 to 70% of the calls.That goes right down to about 20%.And in the end,you get what you pay for.That is basically the service we've got at the moment.

Some still believe that while we are far from perfect,the system has a future.

People need to understand that we are not complacent about this.This was a real issue.Things are much improved,but we can do better and we will do better.And we will be continuously looking at ways that we can improve this service.

Do you think I should chat to a clinician or just do it?

We haven't got the clinicians to spare.

The immediate challenge now is to find someone to take on the contract NHS direct is pullingo out of.Restoring confidence may prove even harder.